Nadine Gordimer was born in Springs, Transvaal, South Africa. She published her first work at age fifteen and has since produced ten novels and more than 200 short stories. Her writings movingly lashed out against the cruelties of apartheid and decried racial segregation for what it was - degrading to her native country and to other African states. Through the experiences of her characters, Gordimer explored clearly and without sentimentality how officially-imposed prejudice and repression devastated lives and offended the basic principles of social justice. she was the first woman in a generation to win a Nobel Prize for Literature (1991), and has had several of her books banned by the former south African government. While in mid-career, Gordimer also taught and lectured at colleges in the U.S. and supported political movements to rescind her nation's racist policies. Among her best known and most poignant works were A Guest of Honour (1970), The Conservationist (1974), Burger's Daughter (1979) and A Sport of Nature (1987).